


The Anticipation of Pancakes

by 8311



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:41:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28747101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/8311/pseuds/8311
Summary: “I'm going to spend the rest of our lives together trying to make you happy. I promise.”Sylvain hugged Byleth from behind, squeezing her tightly with emotion. A single teardrop fell from his eyes onto her shoulder, and she reached her hand upwards to ruffle his hair silently. His grip loosened slightly, and she turned in his arms to face him, placing a gentle kiss on his lips.He grinned widely and held her closer. “I’ve never had my first kiss with a girl after we got engaged.” He paused for a second. “Well, I’ve never really been engaged to a girl…” he frowned and moved his hands up to her shoulders, pushing her outwards slightly so he could look at her face. “For the first time in my life, I am, somehow, out of words.” He leaned in to kiss her again, deeper this time, sliding his hands down to her hips and pulling her towards his body. He could feel her mouth curl into a smile under his, and she pulled him in even tighter.
Relationships: Sylvain Jose Gautier/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It took an engagement for Byleth and Sylvain to really spend some time alone, together.

“I'm going to spend the rest of our lives together trying to make you happy. I promise.”

Sylvain hugged Byleth from behind, squeezing her tightly with emotion. A single teardrop fell from his eyes onto her shoulder, and she reached her hand upwards to ruffle his hair silently. His grip loosened slightly, and she turned in his arms to face him, placing a gentle kiss on his lips. 

He grinned widely and held her closer. “I’ve never had my first kiss with a girl after we got engaged.” He paused for a second. “Well, I’ve never really been engaged to a girl…” he frowned and moved his hands up to her shoulders, pushing her outwards slightly so he could look at her face. “For the first time in my life, I am, somehow, out of words.” He leaned in to kiss her again, deeper this time, sliding his hands down to her hips and pulling her towards his body. He could feel her mouth curl into a smile under his, and she pulled him in even tighter. 

After what felt like both a year and a second, their lips parted and they gazed into each others eyes. Byleth’s smile widened as she observed his face, moving from his eyes, down his nose, and towards his perfect lips before darting back up to his ruffled hair, gleaming like copper in the rising sun. 

“Well, my lovely fiancee?” he stepped away from her and bowed deeply. “Would you like for me to serve you a breakfast in bed? We didn’t start in bed, but we can go back to my quarters and you can sit on my bed while I run to the dining hall and then I can feed you pancakes.” He winked and grabbed her hand, pulling her gently as he started towards the dormitories. 

Walking through Garreg Mach, they encountered more than a few confused stares. The pair held hands and exchanged glances like love-struck teenagers, giggling each time one squeezed the hand of the other and sneaking kisses behind each pillar (regardless of if eyes were on them). The people of the monastery had barely even seen the archbishop smile, let alone giggle furiously while holding hands with the kingdom’s Legendary Philanderer. 

Reaching his room in the dormitories. Sylvain bowed again and kissed Byleth’s hand. “Let me unlock the door for you. I’ll be back.” 

She raised an eyebrow at him and smiled gently. “No ulterior motives? I’m offended.”

Sylvain flushed, his rare loss for words persisting. “I mean, I can…do you want me to…I wasn’t…” 

Byleth laughed, a cheerful and bell-like noise. Sylvain watched her lips curl up, entranced. “I’m mostly joking. Mostly. I would love some pancakes, though. Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to come with you?” She reached out to grab his hand and squeezed it happily. 

“I can have ulterior motives if you want, my dear. I would have no other motives besides, even, if you asked.” He winked at her and unlocked the door to his room, pulling her inside with him before shutting the door. Without warning, he pushed her body towards the locked door and leaned down to kiss her, moving one hand up to play with her hair and the other down to squeeze her butt, before pinning her to the door with his hips against hers. 

“Are these motives ulterior enough for you?” He pulled away slightly to give her his signature smirk before moving his lips to her neck, breathing gently up to her ear. 

Byleth let out an involuntary shudder then moved both her hands into Sylvain’s hair, pulling his head closer towards her neck. She felt his laughter against her skin as he kissed her neck again then drew away, gently disentangling himself from her. 

“Let me get you those pancakes, love.” He winked again then turned her towards his bed, gesturing for her to sit as he unlocked the door again and slipped through it. “See you soon.”

As the door locked from the outside, Byleth leaned back on Sylvain’s bed, hands behind her head, a smile playing across her lips. She had thought about kissing him for a long time, no doubt, but the warmth she felt from finally doing it radiated through her giddily. She closed her eyes contentedly and allowed herself to doze off for a power nap until he got back. 

—

“Good morning, beautiful.” Sylvain sat down at the edge of the bed and shook her gently, watching as her eyes flickered open. Sothis, if she wasn’t the most beautiful woman he had ever seen…

“Mmmm.” She stuck her tongue out slightly between her lips as she propped herself up on her elbows. “Hello.” 

“I was barely gone for 15 minutes. Is the anticipation of me coming back that boring? More worrying, is the anticipation of pancakes that boring?” He gestured to the table in the center of the room where there were two steaming plates, heaped with breakfast. 

Byleth wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down towards her for a kiss. “Couldn’t sleep last night.”

“Oh?” Sylvain laid down next to her, pulling her head onto his chest. 

“Yeah. I was thinking about…” she trailed off and snuggled closer into him. “I was thinking about you. I was nervous.”

“Oh?” he teased. 

“I wanted to tell you I loved you. And to give you something. But you gave me this ring first.” She wiggled her left hand to show it off, then rummaged in her pocket and clasped something in her fist. “Close your eyes, please.”

“Or what?” he kissed her then obliged. She gently grabbed his left hand and slid Jeralt’s ring onto his ring finger, then leaned over him and kissed him again. “Okay. Open.”

Sylvain opened his eyes and pulled his hand up to his face, examining the new addition. “Byleth…”

“Yes?” She rolled over to clasp her left hand to his.

“This is so beautiful. Almost as beautiful as you. Are you…are you sure you want me to have this?” 

She nodded emphatically. “Jeralt told me to give it to someone special. Someone who I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.”

He stared at his hand silently, his face screwed up slightly as if pondering something seriously. “Byleth…this all feels like a happy dream.”

“It feels like that to me, too. I really…I really think I love you, Sylvain.”

“I’ve wanted to hear nothing else since…well, maybe since I met you? I’m not entirely sure, I was still fucking around a lot then, and…” he shook his head. “Sorry. I’m not sure what I’m trying to say.” He frowned. “I ruined the moment. I’m sorry. I love you, too. You know that, I hope.”

Byleth leaned her head back on his chest and started to trace indistinct patterns over him. “You can take your time. It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about whatever it is.”

Sylvain sighed. “No, no. It’s okay. I’m just really good at disguising my insecurities with flowery language, and even though I can trust that there’s a woman right here who genuinely cares about me, I still can’t understand why she’s here. Why does the Archbishop of the Church of Seiros, the Ashen Demon, the most _significant_ human being in the last several hundred years, want to spend the rest of her life with, well…me?”

Her fingers stopped briefly on his chest as she considered his question, then she continued tracing. “Because I see who you are. Yes, I know you’ve been hurt, been used. But I’ve never met someone more perceptive, kind, or intelligent. If the universe had tilted even a degree differently, you would be more _significant_ to this world than I ever could be. In fact, to me, you are.” She looked at him seriously, eyes wide, mouth crooked sideways in confusion. “Not to mention, you are the most beautiful man alive.” She ran a hand through his hair and lifted herself up slightly to kiss him deeply. “I am lucky to have gotten the opportunity to confess my love to you. I know you don’t think anyone has before in earnest, but I know that all I was granted was simply first in a line of many. Your crest is nothing-” she poked a finger in his chest. “-absolutely NOTHING compared to your heart. Your smile.” A genuine sadness made its way to her eyes.

Sylvain nearly choked up seeing the look in her face. This woman - THE woman - that he loved barely spoke more than a sentence at a time. But he had just listened, just watched as her eyes welled up, as she created an entire paragraph of love dedicated to him. Nothing had meant more. “I…”

“Shh.” She pressed a finger to his lips. “Stop talking. All you do is talk. You don’t have to talk. I would love you even if you lost your voice.” 

He let go of her hand and wrapped his arms around her tightly, pulling her towards him. “I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything or anyone else, combined.” He whispered.


	2. Dare You To Try

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some citrus flavored fluff, in which Sylvain tells Byleth how long he's wanted her.

“These are pretty good.”

“ _Pretty good_? Byleth, these pancakes are…” Sylvain stuffed another forkful of lukewarm breakfast in his face. “…so good. So good.”

“Strange man. Are you sure you don’t want to marry the pancakes instead?” Byleth waved her fork at him and gave him her signature head tilt, smiling slightly. 

“Isn’t that a little overkill? I mean, if I eat the pancakes, they go away. But if I do the same to you…” He smirked and winked suggestively. 

Byleth blushed and said nothing, ignoring the sudden warmth that flowed downwards. Instead, she finished off her plate. Pushing it to the center of the table, she grabbed Sylvain’s empty plate and stacked it on top of her own. 

She busied herself momentarily with tidying up the table, then shot an idle glance at Sylvain, who was leaned back in his chair, arms behind his head, watching her through half-lidded eyes. Catching her gaze, he widened his smirk and waved at her. The warmth between her thighs intensified. 

“Hello there, lovely.”

“Hello, Sylvain. What can I do for you, today?”

“I was just thinking about Byleth the warrior and how different she is from Byleth the domestic goddess, who stands here today in front of me, cleaning up my table. Who would have thought that I would get to see something so rare.” 

“You literally used to cook dinner with me in the dining hall. Do you remember that?”

“Of course. Sometimes you would just come up to me and ask you if I would help you cook. It made no sense to me, but I would take any opportunity I had to get a bit more time with you. Or when you’d ask me to tea. One week you did it three days in a row.” He nodded, reminiscing.

“There was just something about the way you opened up around me that made me want to spend all my time with you.” She shrugged. “But it was still a little strange. Even though we’re around the same age, you were still my student.”

“Mmm. That definitely didn’t play into my fantasies. Not one bit.” Sylvain’s voice teased her from where he sat, before continuing tentatively. “…how well do you remember when you would teach us to spar?”

“It was routine. I’m not sure if there was much to remember.” Byleth shrugged and walked behind Sylvain’s chair, placing her elbows on his shoulders and leaning down to nuzzle the back of his head with her nose. She inhaled deeply, intoxicated by the herbal scent of his hair. “Why?”

“Well…” he reached a hand up to her, ruffling her hair. “You know how I’d let you beat me immediately if I wasn’t able to throw you off your guard instantaneously?”

“I just figured you were slacking off. You performed well enough in battle that I didn’t think it over too much. I figured you just cared about showing off in class.”

“You are _so_ naive, my love.” Sylvain laughed suddenly, startling Byleth. “Let me put you in a standing choke.” He stood up from his chair and gestured for her to stand near him. 

Byleth frowned, confused and taken aback, but stood back from Sylvain’s chair and got into position, ready to take on anything that came at her. 

“This is what I mean.” Sylvain gently circled her neck with his arm, placing the crook of his elbow at the very front, reaching past to grab his other shoulder. He placed his other hand on top of her head, as if he was going to choke her out. Instead, he pulled her closer to him, so her hips were flush against his. 

She gasped with surprise as his erection pressed into her, causing all the hairs on her body to stand on end. He gently ground himself into her, releasing his hold around her neck to grab one of her breasts. He slid his other hand down her body slowly to below her navel, restraining her mobility, making sure she felt nothing but him behind her. He held her there for a moment longer, before releasing her and kissing her chastely on the back of the head. 

“That’s what I mean. It would have been disastrous if you had noticed the problem I had each time my hands got near you.” 

Byleth stood frozen, observing the sensations flowing through her body. She was no stranger to arousal, but the feeling of another body pressed against hers outside of battle was brand new. She thought back to any number of the moments she had created in her mind, but none of them compared, no, none of them even held a _candle_ to the way each of her nerve endings stood on alert. 

Still standing behind her, Sylvain traced gently up and down her arm. “You know,” he leaned down to place his lips by her ear. “It was incredibly hard to be me. All I wanted was to be loved. I chased every woman who would give me the time of day, just so I could feel powerful in the face of my own powerlessness. I filled my own void with meaningless touch, with the charade of love, just to see if I could catch a _glimpse_ of what it would really be like.” He spun her around in his arms and gazed intently at her face, the bewildered tilt of her mouth, her eyes. He continued to gently stroke her skin, each of the goosebumps on her arm vivid under his thumbs. 

“Then, a new teacher was assigned to my class. My instinct was to tease her, chase after her, because that was just what I did. But I truly believe she was the only woman who saw through me. She talked to me. She broke through the wall I had created for myself. Oh, and she was so beautiful.” He moved one of his hands up to cradle her face. “What was a sad boy to do? Alone in my room each night, I imagined you there with me. We would talk. You would hold my hand. I would kiss you, again and again. I would pin you onto the bed, sometimes. Or you would straddle me, holding my hands behind my back.” He moved to grab both of her wrists, softly restraining her behind her own back, then kissed her deeply, using the momentum of his body to push her towards the bed, toppling her. “That night after the ball was the worst. That was the closest I had ever come to telling you how I felt. I wished I could whisk you away with me, and that we could dance and dance and dance and I could spin you in my arms in front of everyone. I wanted to shout it from the third floor. I wanted you to be mine, more than anything.” He knelt over her on the bed, running his fingers through her hair. 

“I think my favorite fantasy, though, was when I would imagine myself between your legs, making you beg for me, and denying you. Each and every time you beat me in battle, you threw me onto the floor while sparring, you chastised me in a lesson, I wondered what it would be like to have you under my thumb for once instead of the other way around. I wanted to hear you moan, no, _scream_ my name.”

Byleth hummed indistinctly as he kissed her neck, running his fingers over her clothed nipples. “Whoops.” He smirked, feeling them harden. He moved to sit on the bed next to her, pulling her up beside him so she could rest her head on his shoulder. 

Her breathing was fast and shallow, and she leaned in to plant a kiss on his cheek before wrapping her arms around him and digging her fingers into his side. “You’re being unfair.”

“I know.” He gently bit at her earlobe. “But it wouldn’t be fair of me to keep you from your work today.” 

“Even an archbishop can take a day off, you know.” She pouted. 

Her body felt like it was on fire. Her fingers itched to push him down on the bed and teach him a lesson. Even though his raw strength surpassed hers, she was the one who taught him how to use it. A part of her wanted to see what it would be like for him to take her with all of his strength. “The next time you try something like that without following through, I may have to take matters into my own hands.” She smiled coyly at him, surprised at her own words. For the longest time, she was too nervous to even tell him what she thought about him, let alone be forward with a sexual advance. 

“I dare you to try.” Sylvain grinned widely, a glint of victory shining in his eyes. 

He took her hand.


End file.
